Stopped for speeding, cabbie mows down Delhi traffic cop

A 24-year-old traffic constable died after he was run over and dragged several metres by an errant cabbie he had pulled up for speeding in northwest Delhi on Saturday night.

Raman Kumar, who was driving the white Ritz that mowed down constable Manna Ram, has been arrested. Two other occupants of the car, both minors, have also been apprehended.

Constable Ram was manning a busy traffic diversion at Zakhira intersection near Moti nagar with a colleague when Raman Kumar’s Ritz came racing straight at them at around 7.30pm Saturday.

“The driver applied the brakes suddenly at the barricade and insisted that he be allowed to go straight through despite the diversion. This led to a heated argument between him and Ram,” said Muktesh Chander, special commissioner of police (traffic).

Kumar, a resident of Shastri Nagar, then reportedly reversed his car and raced ahead, breaking the barricades. In his attempt to stop Kumar, Ram jumped on to the car, holding on to the windshield wipers. But Kumar refused to slow down and the constable, who had joined the force just four years ago, was flung to the ground and came under the wheels.

He is suspected to have died instantly but was dragged on for close to 150 metres before he fell by the wayside, lifeless.

Incidents of road rage are notoriously routine on Delhi’s roads with people losing their lives over the most petty squabbles. “Such incidents depict the kind of callous attitude people have not only towards the law but also towards their own safety as well as that of others,” Chander said.

According to police records, 10 traffic personnel have been killed in the past five years while manning the traffic diversion at the intersection near Liberty cinema.

Ram was the sole breadwinner for his family of six. He leaves behind a wife and infant son, parents and a sister.